DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) (62 page)

Pony paused, sorting it all out. “So you are saying that you will not come within twenty centaur strides of anyone at all?” she asked. “Of me?”

“It’s the way it’s got to be,” the centaur answered. Pony caught the slight quaver in his voice, but just a slight one, and one that did little to diminish his firm resolve.

“Have you joined the Abellican Church, then?” Pony asked sarcastically. “They lock their doors and hide in their abbeys while the world outside dies.”

“And if one o’ their own gets it, they send him out, not to doubt,” the centaur added.

“They do,” Pony answered. “Cowards all!”

“No!”

Bradwarden’s tone surprised her, as straightforward and determined as she had ever heard from the typically blunt centaur.

“Ye call ’em cowards, but I’m thinkin’ them wise indeed,” Bradwarden said after a short pause. “What’re they to do, then? Come out and die? Wallow in the misery until the misery grows in them?”

“They could try something!” Pony insisted. “Anything! What right have they to hide themselves away?”

“Not a right, but a responsibility, I’m guessin’,” said the centaur. “Ye don’t know, me friend—ye can’t know, for yer type o’ folks don’t keep so long a memory. Not long enough, anyway. Do ye know the tidin’s the plague will bring? Do ye know the riotin’ and the fightin’ and the dyin’?”

Pony straightened and stared at him, but had no answer.

“Yer friends open their abbeys and half o’ them’ll die from the plague, and doin’ no good in the process,” Bradwarden remarked. “And the other half’ll likely die in the fightin’, for the folk’ll blame them monks afore long, don’t ye doubt! Happened before and will happen again! They’ll blame ’em and they’ll burn down their abbeys
and they’ll stake ’em up. God’s not with them now, they know, and so they’ll blame them who think they speak to God.”

That set Pony back on her heels a bit, for she realized that she hadn’t really considered all the implications here. She hated Braumin’s choice, the Church’s choice, but was there a logical, even necessary reason behind their seeming cowardice?

Suddenly Pony felt very much alone in a very large and dangerous world, a place that had grown beyond her ability to manipulate, even to understand. She looked at her distant friend plaintively. “Play for me,” she bade him, her voice barely a whisper.

“Aye, that I can do,” the centaur replied quietly, and he took up his pipes and began a soulful melody, a quiet, melancholy tune that seemed to Pony to cry for all the world.

B
raumin heard the rumble of thunder, and thought it curious, for the sky beyond his little window seemed bright and sunny. Even as he began to catch on to the truth, he heard the cries from a brother in the corridor.

Braumin rushed out, nearly colliding with the man.

“Fighting in the streets!” the young brother cried. “Brothers and peasants! Call out the guard! Call out the guard!”

Braumin rushed by the frightened young brother, through the corridors of St. Precious, across the inner courtyard and to the front wall, where he found Talumus and Castinagis on the ramparts, gemstones in hand. Flanking the two were several other brothers, all holding crossbows.

Braumin Herde scrambled up the ladder to join his friends. He heard another thunderstroke before he even got up there, followed by screams, both angry and agonized.

“There!” Brother Talumus cried, pointing down a long avenue to a group of about a score of robed brothers hustling toward St. Precious, waving gemstones, a host of peasants pursuing them and flanking them along other avenues.

“From St.-Mere-Abelle?” Brother Castinagis asked, for none of St. Precious’ brethren were out of the abbey at that time.

“Raise your crossbows!” Talumus cried, the running brothers and the pursuing throng closing in.

“No!” said Abbot Braumin, and all eyes turned upon him. “We’ll not kill the folk of Palmaris,” he declared.

“They will overrun the brothers!” Talumus argued.

But Braumin remained adamant. He noted that Talumus held a graphite gemstone, and he took it from the man and marked the approach. “Open the portcullis and have brothers ready to swing wide the gates,” he ordered Talumus.

Master Viscenti joined them then, carrying an assortment of stones, graphite among them.

“We have to defeat the flanks,” Braumin explained, pointing to the avenue that ended in the courtyard to the left of the abbey. “Kill none, but strike the ground
before them to hold them back.”

“Run, brothers!” Castinagis cried to the approaching group. Both Braumin and Viscenti began falling into their gemstones then, exciting the magical energy. Three lines of people came rushing toward the abbey: the central, led by the running brothers, and ones on either side, curling in to seal off their escape into St. Precious. Those flanking lines turned the last corner and began the last run to spill into the courtyard before the gates.

Abbot Braumin loosed his lightning bolt to the right, followed by Viscenti’s lesser strike to the left. Braumin’s bolt struck a building, a farrier’s shop, rattling the windows and sending several horseshoes flying wildly. Viscenti’s bolt hit the cobblestones of the road and ricocheted up, catching the leading peasants squarely in the face and hurling them to the ground. Viscenti could only pray that he hadn’t harmed any too badly.

“The doors! The doors!” Castinagis screamed a moment later. St. Precious’ front gates swung wide, and Brother Talumus and a dozen other brothers rushed out to escort the line of running brothers into the abbey.

They didn’t get in easily, though—Talumus and the others had to kick and punch through a group of stubborn peasants, swatting them away. Finally, with several people down and wounded before the gates, and two brothers bleeding badly, St. Precious was secured.

From the rampart, Abbot Braumin could only watch and shake his head helplessly. He noted a group of city soldiers along the avenue to the right, making no move at all to secure the situation.

He wasn’t surprised.

Braumin went down to the inner courtyard then, to greet his unexpected visitors. By the time he arrived, they had pulled back their hoods. Some were being tended for minor wounds, others were simply bent over, trying to catch their breath.

Braumin looked them over curiously, for though many were not young men, he didn’t recognize any of them—except one.

“Master Glendenhook?” he asked, moving near to the man.

“Greetings, Abbot Braumin,” Glendenhook replied.

“Why are you out of St.-Mere-Abelle?” Braumin asked incredulously. “Why are you here?”

“We are the brothers inquisitor,” another monk answered in the thick accent of southeastern Honce-the-Bear—from Entel, likely. “We’ve come to investigate claims of a miracle at Mount Aida performed by Avelyn Desbris.”

Abbot Braumin swayed as if a slight wind could have knocked him over. “The building of the chapel of Avelyn was halted,” he replied, “by order of Father Abbot Agronguerre.”

“It would be foolish to expose ourselves in such a manner as to dedicate a new chapel,” Master Glendenhook replied. “But the canonization of Brother Avelyn must go forward. A full investigation.”

Abbot Braumin heard Talumus and Viscenti and others about him give a cheer, but he just stared at Glendenhook curiously.

“The people need a hero at this dark time, would you not agree, Abbot Braumin?” Glendenhook remarked. “Perhaps Brother Avelyn will withstand the scrutiny of the process and become that hero.”

It didn’t make much sense to Braumin at that time. He knew that Glendenhook was tied closely to Master Bou-raiy, certainly no friend to the memory of Avelyn Desbris. At the College of Abbots, when Markwart had condemned Master Jojonah for following Avelyn, Bou-raiy had been a huge supporter of Jojonah’s execution.

“Let Avelyn’s name be put forward and let all the world rejoice,” Master Glendenhook added, and he seemed sincere.

But when he looked at Glendenhook’s smile, Abbot Braumin couldn’t help but question that sincerity.

Something just didn’t seem right.

Chapter 29
 

“A
BBOT
H
INGAS DESIRES AUDIENCE
,
MY LIEGE
,”
THE CASTLE GUARDSMAN REPORTED
to King Danube.

Duke Kalas, sitting at the side of the room, snorted derisively. He had no love for Hingas, the interim abbot of St. Honce, whom he thought a complete fool. Kalas didn’t care much for any member of the Abellican Church, of course, but in the case of Abbot Hingas, several others of King Danube’s court, Constance among them, had to agree with him.

“He has come to complain about the broken windows again, no doubt,” said Constance Pemblebury, who had her back to the others, sitting modestly and feeding Torrence, her second son, who was now six months old. Merwick moved excitedly about her chair, setting up little wooden blocks, then kicking them all over the room.

“Or to talk about the weight of a soul,” Kalas remarked, “of how it is lighter than the very air about us and so it floats, floats, to heaven.” His voice rose an octave as he spoke the words, sarcastic and derisive.

“Your Majesty?” the poor sentry asked.

King Danube rolled his eyes.

“No!” Kalas yelled at the sentry. “Out with him! Out! Send him back to St. Honce and tell him to suffer the rocks and the taunts. Tell them all to suffer, for the good of the world, and when they have finally appointed an abbot, a real abbot, let him come and beg audience with the King.”

The fiery Duke’s tirade didn’t surprise the others, of course, but the intensity of it this time certainly made Danube and Constance look at each other with concern.

“Better off is Je’howith,” Constance remarked dryly, and even diplomatic King Danube couldn’t deny a chuckle at that.

“In the grave and at peace from Duke Kalas,” Danube said.

“Did you wish to speak with the idiot?” Kalas asked, clutching his heart as if their words had wounded him.

“Likely you did me a favor,” King Danube replied, pulling himself from his chair and walking over to the window.

Below him lay Ursal, quiet, awaiting winter. Every family had at least one victim now, so it was reported; and many houses lay dark and still, full of death, with no one to go in and retrieve the bodies.

Such was King Danube’s beloved capital that late autumn of God’s Year 829. It should have been among the happiest times of Danube’s life. The demon and its minions had been shattered; the Church, always a nagging rival to the Throne, had
been pushed into disarray; and his dear Constance had given him two sons: sons whom he was beginning to think of as heirs to his throne—though, of course, he’d have to speak with his brother at length about that possibility.

Yet, here he was, buttoned up within the prison that Castle Ursal had become, a fortress against the misery of the plague, though that most insidious of enemies had found its way even into these fortified halls, forcing the expulsion of two servants and a guard.

So far, though, none of his closest friends had been afflicted; and for that, King Danube mumbled a little prayer of thanks as he stood solemnly at the high window, looking out over his wounded kingdom.

Not much of a blessing, perhaps, but in this dark day, any light at all seemed a good thing.

T
he snow held off in the northland until after the turn of winter, but when it did come to Dundalis, it did so in fury, with drifts covering the entire sides of houses and burying the fences of the corrals.

Soon after, and still before the turn of God’s Year 830, the weather calmed enough for Pony to attempt venturing out. And truly, she needed the time alone, at the grove and Elbryan’s cairn, her great retreat from the events of the world.

She saddled Greystone and walked out of Dundalis, up the north slope and along the rim of the vale filled with caribou moss and pines, for the edges of the dale were windblown and nearly clear, while the dell itself was deep in snow. She found the trails within the forest easier going than she had anticipated, though the snow was often halfway up Greystone’s legs, and on several occasions, Pony had to dismount and lead the horse along.

She had left early in the morning, and a good thing it was, for it was nearing noon when she at last came to the sheltered grove. The rolling hills and sharp ravines nearby were too deep and too slick, so Pony had dismounted again and tethered the horse in a windblown clearing, walking in the last quarter mile.

Two sets of hoofprints, running the length of the last field and right into the grove, alerted her that she was not alone. At first, she thought that it might be Bradwarden and Symphony—for who else would be out here on such a day—but then she saw a third track, the boots of a rider, beside the line of hoofprints.

Shadowing the forest line for cover, Pony did a complete circuit of the grove. She spied a lone rider in the distance, sitting quietly along the tree line, bundled under mounds of furs.

Now she fell into her hematite, using its depths to release her spirit from her corporeal body. She went out to the rider first, and determined on her way that he had a companion, who was within the grove—her grove!—and the mere thought of that made her angry.